Ancient Chinese Food

Lao Tzu, the Chinese philosopher who lived
in the sixth century BC and is considered the founder of Taoism, said:
"Governing a great nation is much like cooking a small fish." What he
meant was, in order to govern successfully, one required just the right
adjustments and seasonings. This metaphorical allusion to food illustrates
quite clearly how important it has always been in Chinese culture.

The culinary history of ancient Chinese
food dates back to about 5000 years. And over this vast period of time, the
Chinese have developed and mastered a complex system of preparing food, such as
identifying ingredients that make compatible combinations; making use of
cooking techniques that are multi-phased such as first steaming and then deep frying
or stir frying, then boiling; and administering multi-phased flavoring like
marinating between the stages of roasting, or after steaming, or before stir
frying.

Ancient Chinese food can be divided roughly
into the Northern style of cooking and the Southern style of cooking.
Generally, Northern Chinese dishes tend to be oily, although they are not
cloyingly so, and garlic and vinegar flavoring are more pronounced. Northern
Chinese food also includes a lot of pasta; some of the favorite flour-based treats
being steamed bread; fried meat dumplings; steamed stuffed buns; dumplings
resembling ravioli and noodles. The best known cooking styles of Northern
Chinese food are perhaps the methods used in Shandong, Tianjin and Beijing. The Chinese wish for satiation and
plenitude is symbolized by an elaborately made stuffed chicken. Some of the
distinguishing Southern styles of cooking are: Hunan and Sichuan cuisine well known for the liberal
utilization of chilli peppers; the Zhejiang and Jiangsu styles of cooking with their emphasis on tenderness and freshness and Cantonese
cuisine which has a tendency of being a little sweet and includes a lot of
variety. Rice as well as rice products like rice cake, rice congee and rice
noodles usually accompany Southern main dishes.

The Chinese always laid a lot of emphasis
on satisfying the olfactory, visual, as well as the gustatory senses, which
they did by giving equal importance to incorporating aroma, color and flavor.
Entrees usually have a combination of 3-5 colors, chosen from ingredients that
are caramel, black, white, yellow, red, dark green and green in color.
Typically, a vegetable and meat dish is cooked using one principle ingredient
and then including 2-3 ingredients of secondary importance which have contrasting
colors. It is then prepared according to ancient methods of cooking, adding
sauces and seasonings, resulting in an aesthetic dish full of aroma, color and
flavor.

Some of the main methods of cooking are:
pan-frying, flash-frying, deep-frying, steaming, stewing and stir-frying. Since
the Chinese always knew that the fragrant aroma of a dish whets the appetite,
they used various flavoring agents like black, dried Chinese mushrooms, sesame
oil, pepper, cinnamon, star anise, wine, chili peppers, garlic, fresh ginger
and scallions. One of the most important aspects of cooking any dish was to
preserve the natural, fresh flavor and remove all unwanted game or fish odors,
which ginger and scallion served to do. Ingredients like vinegar, sugar and soy
sauce were used to enhance the richness of a dish without smothering the
natural flavors.

Hence, in ancient Chinese cooking, a well
made dish would be: hot and spicy for those with a penchant for piquancy;
sweetish for people with a predilection towards sweet flavor; for those with a
preference for blander tasting food it would not be over-spiced; and for those
who revel in strong flavors it would be rich. The Chinese were of the opinion
that if a dish comprised of all these features and satisfied all these tastes,
it was indeed a successful one.